You Can Make a Difference: A Teacher's Guide to Political Action

For the past two decades, virtually no public education program in this country has been able to get out from under the specter of budget cuts, shifting demographics, and the winds of political change. You Can Make a Difference tells the story of one that did. The authors, all educators turned activists, mobilized when their Reading Recovery program was threatened with elimination due to budget cuts. Here in one slim but powerful volume, they share their hard-won experiences.

In concert with Regie Routman's call to action in Literacy at the Crossroads (Heinemann, 1996), this book offers both inspiration and practical instruction. It begins with step-by-step advice for implementing a program, then explores the subsequent phases of maintaining and restoring it. Along the way, we learn how to organize colleagues, garner parent support, lobby school boards and legislators, secure funding, cultivate media ties, evaluate effectiveness, build coalitions, and more.

You Can Make a Difference is neither a political treatise nor a philosophical theorem. Written from the real-life perspective of real teachers, it is a useful guide for educators, parents, administrators, curriculum coordinators, union members, and anyone involved in the grass-roots politics of education. Even accidental activists will find encouragement: "You may not even want to be taking this action on," say the authors, "but you're doing it because you believe it's right. You Can Make a Difference is written to help you learn quickly what to do, how to be effective as you become involved politically, and how to maintain some balance as you stay involved."

Barbara Keresty is a reading specialist for the Madison Metropolitan School District, Madison, Wisconsin. Keresty is president-elect of Madison Teacher’s Inc., the second largest teachers’ union in Wisconsin.

Susan O’Leary teaches Reading Recovery and English as a Second Language at Franklin School in Madison, Wisconsin. She is the author of Five Kids: Stories of Children Learning to Read.

Dale Wortley is a Reading Recovery teacher leader for the Madison Metropolitan School District, Madison, Wisconsin. She has also served the district as a Title I teacher, reading specialist, and staff developer for the district’s K-8 reading program.

Richard Allington is coauthor of No More Summer-Reading Loss, part of Heinemann's Not This But That series as well as editor of Big Brother and the National Reading Curriculum.

Dick is a professor of literacy studies at the University of Tennessee. He is a past-president of the International Reading Association and the Literacy Research Association. Dick and Anne McGill-Franzen were awarded the Albert J. Harris Award for their study of ameliorating summer reading loss. Together they co-edited the Handbook of Reading Disability Research and Summer Reading:Closing the Rich/Poor Reading Achievement Gap.

He was previously the Irving and Rose Fien Professor of Education at the University of Florida. Dick is a member of the Reading Hall of Fame and the recipient of numerous awards for his contributions to understanding reading difficulties. He is the author/coauthor of several books, including What Really Matters for Struggling Readers: Designing Research-based Programs.